


Reaching Out, Not Letting Go

by legendaryroar



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Love Confessions, M/M, Pining, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, post-season 6
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-10
Updated: 2018-08-10
Packaged: 2019-06-24 15:39:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15633675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/legendaryroar/pseuds/legendaryroar
Summary: On the way back to Earth, the team set down on a planet to stay the night. Keith's been avoiding talking about what happened with Shiro, but Shiro's not waiting any longer. There are things that need to be said, but it would be so much easier if Keith didn't keep flinching away.





	Reaching Out, Not Letting Go

Keith is standing away from the rest of the group as they bicker about who gets what small building for the night. The planet they landed on is dotted with small, abandoned settlements, the lions didn’t pick up any lifeforms on their scans of the buildings. Everyone else seems delighted to be sleeping in something other than the lions, just as they’d been delight to take off their armour and wear normal clothes again once the area was deemed safe, but Keith would rather sleep anywhere than in one of the empty buildings. And he’d rather stay armoured too, but pushing that issue isn’t worth the concerned looks he’s sure it'd get.

Settlements aren’t abandoned for no reason, and even if the lions will pick up any incoming threat long before it reaches them, it just pricks at his awareness and he can’t relax. Krolia probably feels the same, but she’s more used to bunking down anywhere she can. In fact, as Keith glances over, it looks like she’s already asleep, sitting propped up against the outside wall of the closest building.

They’re all small, one-room huts really, but the walls are sturdy and well made, and there are beds and bathroom facilities in all of them. They look more high-tech on the inside than their exteriors suggest, though Pidge has been unable to get any of the tech working. She’d wandered around muttering under her breath for a while before admitting defeat, unable to locate a power source.

No power, but running water in the bathrooms at least.

Some buildings, however, are nicer than others, and the bickering started not long after Pidge admitted she couldn’t get the power going.

“You know, as the black paladin, you could pull rank and assign buildings to speed things along.”

Keith stiffens as Shiro appears at his side. “I’m not the black paladin,” he says coldly. “I just happen to fly the black lion.” The clarification is pointless. Shiro can’t pilot now, not until they do something about his arm, but Keith just can’t see him as anything else. Shiro will always be the black paladin to him.

“Keith, come on,” Shiro says gently.

It rubs Keith all the wrong ways. He can hear it coming. The talk. They haven’t had it yet, he’s been avoiding it. The talk about Shiro not being Shiro for so long. That Shiro was really dead but some _thing_ wearing his face, the face now next to him, had almost killed Keith.

Keith’s not ready for it. He doesn’t think he ever will be. He still doesn’t know what to do with any of it, or the fact he should have known. He’s known Shiro longer than any of the others, he should have noticed something was wrong much, much sooner.

“If you want to stop their bickering, you go assign buildings,” he says, cringing at his own petulance.

A hand brushes his arm and before he can stop himself, he flinches away from it. Shiro sighs. He lingers for a moment, even though Keith picks a spot on the ground and stares it, but soon he wanders back to the group.

It takes too long for Keith to relax.

The longer they avoid talking about what happened, the worse it’s going to be. Shiro’s probably agonising over what that clone did to Keith. No, there’s no probably about it. He will be. He’ll be blaming himself and hating every time Keith flinches away from him. Keith knows him well enough for that.

But the flinching, it’s not something Keith can stop. It started almost right after Allura put Shiro in the clone’s body. Once the relief to have him back had sunk in and he’d had time to _feel_ everything he’s been through. Then the comforting contact with Shiro turned to flinching away. He’s not even sure it’s fear. He knows this is Shiro now. He really knows it, and he knows Shiro will never hurt him. But still, Shiro touches him now and his body reacts before he can stop it.

If it’s not fear of Shiro hurting him, it can only be not wanting the conversation that will surely come from those soft touches. Shiro’s always been like that. He’s always been tactile, and Keith has always leaned into the touches that comes with difficult discussions. It always makes it easier.

But this time, this time everything skitters around in his mind. The things he said. The things the clone said. The fact Shiro has been gone since that fight with Zarkon, but has also been there all along, in the black lion. The things Keith sometimes said in the black lion, talking to Shiro as if he was there. Knowing now that he really was there to hear all of Keith’s doubts, all his fears about going on without him. How Keith really feels about him, confessed in a broken sob when he thought only the lion could hear him.

They do need to talk, at the very least so he can begin to think clearly before they’re thrust into battle again. But he’s still not ready.

Behind him, the chatter dies down. When footsteps approach him again, he turns to meet Shiro’s gaze head-on.

“We’re sharing,” Shiro says, his voice firm and unyielding. He points to a building a little removed from the others. “That one.”

It’s not a surprise. Shiro’s let him avoid the issue for days now as they met with alliance members and then turned towards Earth.

“Fine,” he mutters. “Is there bedding in the buildings or do we need to get things from the lions?”

“Everything we could need is there, just a little dusty,” Shiro says. “You shake out the bedding, I’ll wipe things down?”

There’s hardly any point. They’ll only be staying one night. Maybe two if everyone needs the break from the lions. But if Keith is shaking out blankets, then Shiro won’t have anything to do. He can recognise the need to keep busy when he sees it.

When they step inside the building Shiro picked for them, Keith’s focus narrows on the fact there’s only one bed, even though it’s a big one.

Shiro notices him looking. “Big enough to share,” he says. “Or I can take the chair over there.”

The chair in the corner looks too small for Shiro to even sit in. Keith wants to laugh. Trapped in this room for a talk he’s not ready for, and one bed at the end of it. There are no curtains over the two small windows currently letting light in, later they’ll bathe the room in moonlight. It’s like some terrible novel. One of the ones his roommate back at the Garrison liked to read.

He can say no, he knows. He can walk right out of there and back into the black lion. Shiro won’t stop him. He knows he won’t if Keith really puts his foot down.

But this has to happen sooner or later. It’s probably better to get everything out in the open while they’re away from the others. Or when they’re not trapped inside a lion together. That’s been awkward enough already, and it’s probably only been Krolia’s presence there that’s stopped Shiro from pushing this sooner.

But she won’t travel with him the whole way, he knows. She’s already been picking up on the awkwardness and offering to leave them alone to talk. Keith thinks she’s only stayed because she knows he’s so far from ready to be alone with Shiro. She’s been buying him time but she won’t do that forever.

Before Shiro can say anything, Keith strips the bedding off the bed and takes it outside. Even if he’s choking on the dust, he uses the time it takes to shake out the bedding to try and gather his chaotic thoughts. The moment he steps back inside, the moment the bed inside is made, Shiro will start talking. But no thoughts come to him, and he steps back inside with his heart beginning to race.

Shiro’s sitting on the end of the bed, looking down at his one remaining hand with a tight and pained expression. He doesn’t notice Keith standing in the doorway. As he curls his hand into a fist, he closes his eyes in a grimace.

“Are you injured?” Keith asks, breaking the silence and crossing the room with heavy steps.

As he dumps the bedding on the bed, Shiro stands up and smooths his hair away from his forehead. It just flops back and brings Keith’s attention to how different it is. He’s not used to it yet, but it doesn’t feel jarring exactly. It’s almost soothing. It’s a blatant reminder that this Shiro is may not be how he used to be, but he isn’t the thing that tried to kill Keith either.

“No,” Shiro mutters, watching as Keith turns and starts to make the bed. “I’m fine.”

“You’re missing an arm,” Keith says quietly. Now that the conversation is here, he just wants it over with. He doesn’t want Shiro easing them into talking about what happened. Going slow only leaves too much time to think and panic when those thoughts just don’t fit right.

Clones and coming back from death? Nothing fits right.

“Well, I’m not dead so it’s an improvement, really.”

The joke falls flat and Keith can’t help but scowl down at the bedding as he finishes up. Of all the things to joke about.

“You’re not dead either,” Shiro adds.

“Really? I had no idea,” Keith mutters, wondering where the hell Shiro is going with that. The bed is made, but he just stares down at it. Maybe he should have let Shiro ease them into this after all.

His hands curl into fists. He doesn’t know what to do. Holding Shiro when he woke in the clone’s body was so easy, telling him to rest was so easy. But once he woke again enough time had passed for Keith’s mind to be a whirlwind of chaos. Everything became awkward after that.

He can’t forget what Shiro knows now, and he has no idea what to do about it.

“You would be, if—”

“I knew the black lion would come for me.”

“Don’t lie to me, Keith,” Shiro says, stepping closer but stopping when Keith can’t help but flinch away again.

Keith can’t look at him. No, he hadn’t known the black lion would come for him. He’d resigned himself to falling to his death with something that he wasn’t even sure was Shiro anymore. But how the hell is he supposed to explain that? He can’t even explain it to himself beyond being completely incapable of letting Shiro go. Or something that only _could_ have been Shiro at that point.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” Shiro says softly, reaching out.

Even though it comes towards him slowly, Keith flinches away at the last second, right before it would land on his shoulder. The wrong hand. The wrong shoulder.

“I know that,” he mutters. “I know you’d never hurt me.”

“Lying again.”

It’s like a soft sigh, and then Shiro sits heavily on the bed, looking down at his lap. His shoulders have sagged, and Keith is torn between reaching out and running away. Running from this talk and all the things it’s going to drag up.

“I _do_ know that,” he snaps, moving to stand in front of him, willing him to look up and see how much he believes that.

“Not physically.” Shiro looks up at him. “But there are other ways to hurt you.”

Keith reels back like he’s been slapped. Even if those words could mean anything, he knows what Shiro means. He knows him too well. He knows himself to well.

“You won’t hurt me because you are _not_ dying again,” he growls, stepping forward again and reaching out to grab Shiro’s shoulders. “I won’t let you.”

Shiro smiles. It’s soft and sad all at once, and Keith wants to punch him for all the things he must be thinking. And how right they are. But it’s a horrible urge, and he pushes it away, pushes it down. He’s never laying a hand on Shiro again. His eyes dart to the space where his right arm should be. Hurting him when he wasn’t even sure it really was him anymore had been hard enough, and pure instinct by the end.

When Shiro’s hand rises to brush Keith’s cheek, he doesn’t flinch away. He barely has time to feel relieved before he starts to fear what’s going to come out of Shiro’s mouth next. Shiro’s always liked to use a comforting touch to soften words he think might be hard to hear.

“Can we talk about why that is now?” Shiro asks softly. “About what I heard sometimes, when I got close enough to you to hear and see you, but not close enough to connect with you.”

Keith’s eyes slide shut. “So you did hear me.”

“Before I was even fully aware I was inside the black lion,” Shiro says. “In and out, I heard snatches here and there. Always you and it pulled me in until I was there beside you, even though I couldn’t touch you, and you couldn’t see me.”

With a broken sound, Keith pulls away. “You weren’t meant to hear any of that,” he says, turning and looking at the door. It’s still open. He can still leave. He can still run from this.

Shiro doesn’t even move when he walks over to it. He stands there for a moment in the doorway, and then closes the door.

They need to finish this, and then things can stop being awkward. Or at least, less awkward. He can’t imagine things will ever go back to the way they were with Shiro knowing what he does now.

“You should just pretend you didn’t hear it,” he says, leaning forward to rest his forehead on the back of the door. “ _Any_ of it.”

“I can’t. And I have some of his memories,” Shiro says. “That only makes it…why did you call him your brother?”

Keith closes his eyes tight. A restless energy fills his hands and he has to bite down on his lip to stop himself from punching the back of the door.

“I thought it was what you…what _he_ would want to hear. That it would…make a difference,” he admits, heat building in his face until it’s burning. “I was about to die, Shiro. What else was I supposed to do? You wouldn’t have wanted me to stop trying, no matter what he was saying. I had to try everything. I’ll always try everything. I will _never_ give up on you!”

The bed creaks behind him. He tenses up but still turns around to face Shiro as he crosses the room.

“God, Keith,” Shiro murmurs, his expression full of pain. “I’m so sorry.”

Keith has to fight the urge to look away. “It wasn’t you,” he bites out, hands curling into fists by his sides, his nails pricking his palms even through his gloves.

The pained look on Shiro’s face doesn’t even soften a little. “But he looked like me. He used things he knew from my memories to hurt you,” he says, sounding horrified. “I remember it like I did it myself. Like I was the one telling you I should have abandoned you. Like I was the one about to kill you. The one who…who scarred you.”

For a moment, Keith can almost feel the burn of that blade again, before it’s Shiro’s fingers brushing over his skin instead.

He doesn’t flinch, but he goes rigid, freezing in place.

“So you remember losing that arm like it happened to you?”

They managed to strip back the remaining pieces of the arm until just the stump remains, and Keith can’t help but shudder as he reaches out and touches it gently through the sleeve that’s tied up around it.

“You had to,” Shiro says, still brushing a thumb over the scar on Keith’s face.

The burn still hurts a little, even after the stuff Coran put on it, but it feels worse than it should and Keith can’t help but flinch away. He expects to be taken back to that moment, with that thing with Shiro’s face leaning over him, crushing him beneath its weight and that blade so close, burning his skin.

But he doesn’t. He sucks in his next breath a little louder, but keeps his eyes fixed on Shiro. With all his hair turned white and nothingness where his right arm should be.

Shiro pulls his arm back slowly, searching Keith’s expression, maybe waiting for him to say something. But Keith has nothing. He did have to cut off that arm. And something wearing Shiro’s face did try to kill him. They are just moments being added to the endless memories that come to haunt him in the night. There’s nothing that can be said now to make any difference. It’s burned into his brain just like it’s burned into his skin.

“I’m sorry that you had to fight someone you thought was me,” Shiro finally says, watching Keith closely. “That he tried to kill you and you had no choice but to fight back while feeling…feeling the way you do.”

A shiver passes over Keith and he finally looks away. “I said forget about that. You weren’t meant to hear it. Just…just…”

He doesn’t know what else to say. He’s so uncomfortable with the fact Shiro heard everything, even if it had brought him so much comfort to say it all aloud at the time. Well, as much comfort as he could get while Shiro had still been missing and presumed dead. It had made him feel closer to Shiro, even though he never would have said any of it to him face to face.

But Shiro’s right. Without even going into detail, Keith knows what he means. Fighting him, or what he thought was him, even though he’d seen flashes of it and thought he was ready even feeling the way he did, loving him…but seeing those other Shiros, his other clones, he hadn’t been ready for that. He hadn’t been ready for it to be someone else he was fighting. To not even know for sure what was real and if he should be fighting at all to save something that might not have been Shiro. But still, he’d been so unable to stop, so unable to give up on the one person he loves more than anyone else.

It’s all a mess inside his head.

“Let it out, Keith,” Shiro murmurs, his hand touching and then sliding over Keith’s shoulder and down his arm as he steps closer. “Talk to me like you talked to me then, in the black lion, when you thought I was gone.”

It’s the last thing Keith wants to do. Shiro was never meant to hear it in the first place, but he did. And now he knows, but Keith doesn’t know what he thinks of it, and he’s too afraid to ask. He’d rather just pretend it never happened.

Shiro’s alive and with them again. That’s enough for him. That will always be enough for him.

Shiro’s arm slides back up Keith’s, across his shoulder and then cups the back of his neck. He tugs with the most weak of motions, but it’s enough to tip Keith forward. He doesn’t resist the motion, he doesn’t flinch away. His face presses into the side of Shiro’s neck and Shiro holds him there. After a moment, Keith lets himself hold Shiro, snakes both arms around him and then grips him tight.

“Things are different now,” he says, right into the skin of Shiro’s neck.

With a long, slow sigh that rustles Keith’s hair, Shiro rubs gently at the nape of Keith’s neck. “I will always be here for you. Nothing will ever change that.”

Keith gathers some of Shiro’s shirt into his fists. Always there, but not how he wants him to be. Never how he’s wanted him to be. It’s always been alright, but right now it’s so hard. Now he’s said things he can’t take back. Things Shiro heard.

Just for a moment, he lets himself ache for what he wants, and then he shuts it all down again like he always does. It gets harder every time.

“I don’t want to talk,” he groans, pulling away from Shiro so sharply that Shiro loses balance for a moment. “It’s all...I’m just…”

He’s tired. He’s so tired. No amount of talking is going make any of it easier. He didn’t just come close to losing Shiro, he _did_ lose Shiro, and he didn’t even know it at the time. And he didn’t even have time to process it when he found out. Not until Shiro was inside the body that tried to kill him.

“Everything you said to me when you thought I was gone, you can say now,” Shiro tries again, following every time Keith takes a step back, looking at him with a gentle, worried expression. “If it helped then, it will help now.”

“It’s not the same,” Keith growls, moving around him and crossing the room even though there’s nowhere to go. He’s said it twice, once to the emptiness of the black lion’s cockpit, and once to a twisted and terrifying version of Shiro that was so close to ending his life. He can’t say it again. He can’t say any of it again. He can’t just open up and share his fears and hopes and regrets with Shiro face to face. It was easier talking to his ghost.

“I’m right here, Keith, and I’m not leaving you again,” Shiro says, following him again. Moving in close, still looking at him with those soft eyes.

Keith’s hands curl into fists.

There’s nowhere to run. They have to sort this out, it can’t just hang between them all the way back to Earth. Not if Keith still wants Shiro in his life, and he does. Of course he does. Any way he can get him, but to be so honest with him again…he can feel it bubbling up, burning behind his eyes. He loves him and he’s lost him too many times. He stared him down and was nearly killed by him. Or a copy of him. He took his arm just like the Galra did. He wasn’t there for Shiro to reach out to while he was trapped in the black lion. He’s lost him too many times and he’s failed him too many times.

“I’m never giving up on you, Keith,” Shiro says softly. “But if you can’t still be open with me, I feel like I’m just going to lose you anyway.”

Shutting his eyes tight, Keith runs through his options. Shiro’s got more stubborn persistence than he has, he’s just gentler about it. At this point, he’s not sure Shiro will let it go even if Keith begs him to. He’s so fixated on this, on Keith saying it again. Opening up to him again even though he already knows everything and Keith just doesn’t get it.

“Why?” he asks. “You already know everything. I already said everything, and none of it matters anyway. You won’t lose me.”

Shiro’s soft expression shifts for a moment into something frustrated, angry, and Keith can’t help but flinch away from him again. He can’t help but slip into a defensive posture to see that expression so close to his face again. He can almost feel the blade burning his cheek.

Immediately, Shiro steps back, raises his hand where Keith can see it, and Keith’s stomach twists.

“We _need_ to talk about this,” Shiro says, sounding tired and hurt. “You’re afraid of me now.”

Keith’s hands curl into fists and he digs his nails into his palms so he doesn’t punch something. “It’s a stupid reflex. I’m not afraid of you.”

The frustration slips back on Shiro’s face, but Keith doesn’t react this time. The urge to punch something only intensifies. It’s so hit and miss, so up and down, the way he flinches away from this and that, but with no pattern. No reason.

“This is why we need to talk,” Shiro says, his voice firmer, almost angry. “I may have heard many things you never expected me to hear, but really I know nothing. It was all before I tried to kill you. Everything is different now.”

“It wasn’t you!” Keith snaps.

“It might as well have been me!” Shiro snaps back, anger slipping back onto his face. It makes Keith’s pulse skip, but he looks up, looks at his hair. All white. Emptiness where that arm should be. He feels restless, like he’s about to flinch away again even though Shiro’s not moving towards him. He can’t stop the feeling.

“See,” Shiro says, softer now. “You’re afraid.”

With a growl, Keith gives into the restless energy, turning and slamming a fist into the nearest wall. He uses the pain to focus. “I’m not afraid of you. It wasn’t you. It _wasn’t_. I _know_ it wasn’t.” But he hadn’t at the time. Not really.

It takes a moment for him to realise there’s a burning in his eyes that starts slipping down his face. It hurts more than his fist, and he swipes angrily at his eyes. “I should have known. I should have…I should have…”

What would he have done if he’d known? Would he have just cut the clone down? _Could_ he have? There had been openings, openings he’d passed up because they were lethal and he was still trying to get through to Shiro. To break through what he’d thought was just the Galra messing with Shiro’s mind. What he’d hoped was just the Galra messing with his mind.

What would he have done if he’d known for sure it wasn’t really Shiro?

With an angry growl, he punches the wall again. If he had cut down the clone then Shiro would still be gone. Still trapped in the black lion with no body to return to. There had been moments, terrifying moments when desperation had started to take over, when Keith had started thinking that there was no way to survive but to cut Shiro down.

But he still hadn’t been able to do it. His life or Shiro’s.

Always Shiro’s.

A hand touches his arm and before he thinks, he’s turning around and striking. His fist catches Shiro’s chin and snaps his head back. It takes until Keith has his arm pulled back again for things to sink in, and he freezes.

Shiro raises a hand to his jaw and all Keith can hear is his own harsh, loud breathing and the rushing of blood in his ears. When Shiro meets his gaze, he doesn’t even look angry, he just looks sad, and Keith feels sick in the pit of his stomach. He never wanted to hurt him again.

“Please, Keith, tell me how to fix this,” Shiro whispers, the sound broken and pained. “I thought talking it out might help. It seemed to help you when I was gone but…do you need space? Is that what will help? I’ve been trying, I really have.”

It takes far more effort than it should to lower his arm, but Keith finally does. “I don’t know,” he admits. He doesn’t know anything anymore. He thought he wasn’t afraid, but he keeps reacting, keeps flinching even though he _knows_ this is Shiro now, that Shiro won’t hurt him.

Why was everything so easy when Shiro was first returned to his body? He hadn’t flinched away then. Why now? Why is it so hard now? And why can’t he stop it? He can’t figure it out.

Something in Shiro’s expression breaks, and he goes and sits on the bed again, his shoulders slumping. “If you need space, I’ll give it to you,” he says quietly. “I’ll try harder. But I’m afraid that’ll be it. That I’ll lose you over it.”

The frustration is bubbling up before Keith can stop it. It bursts out of him in anger. “Stop saying that!” he snaps, crossing the room and grabbing Shiro’s shoulders again. “You’re not going to lose me. _Stop saying that!_ ”

Shiro’s hand comes up to cover his face. But it doesn't muffle the sob that escapes him. “I almost did. I almost did and it was my hands doing it. And I know it’s worse for you, seeing me and remembering, but I…god, Keith, I just want to hold you and never let you go. But you…you flinch when I touch you and I…I can’t…it’s too late.”

Watching Shiro’s shoulders start to shake gives Keith that restless energy again. It’s a problem he’s had since a kid. Strong emotions just flood him until his fists are flying whether he wants them to or not. But all he can do now is grip Shiro’s shoulders tighter and try to remember how to breathe. He’s not hurting Shiro again. He _can’t_.

He doesn’t know what to do. He thinks he’s not afraid, but then he flinches and Shiro’s right. Even if they know it wasn’t him, it was his face, it was his hands. And he has those memories.

“Tell me what to do.” Keith begs, sliding his hands up Shiro’s neck to his jaw, knocking his hand from his face and tilting it up to meet his gaze. “Tell me how to fix this.”

Shiro laughs, a wet, hiccoughing sound. “I don’t know, Keith. I don’t even know how you feel anymore. Just…talk to me? Just talk to me like you did when I was gone? It was more than you ever did when I was alive and here. I…you don’t know how hard it was to listen and be unable to do anything. Unable to even let you know I was there. I tried sometimes. I called out to you, I begged you. I tried to touch you, I even tried to…sometimes I tried so hard I faded into nothingness for a while and that was so much worse. I know some things will have changed, but...I just want you close. I just want to hear your voice and know you’re okay. Or at least...god, sorry, I know you’re not okay.”

Keith wants to laugh. It’s so stupid. He expects Shiro to have all the answers but Shiro was _dead_. And now he’s not. Now he’s in a body that isn’t even really his own, and it tried to kill not only Keith, but everyone else. And, fuck, why is he being so selfish? Shiro needs him and he’s just pulling away. He’s not trying hard enough.

There’s no flinching away when he slips his hands under Shiro’s arm, and then under stump that’s all that remains of the one Keith cut off. He pulls until Shiro stands and then he loops his arms around Shiro’s waist and steps close. He doesn’t flinch, and Shiro shudders in his arms.

“I’m sorry,” Keith whispers, dipping his head and pressing it into Shiro’s shoulder, hiding it. “I’m sorry I’m no good at this. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to stop the flinching. I’m not afraid. I swear, Shiro, it’s just a reflex. I _know_ you won’t hurt me, but my body just…reacts. I’m sorry I hit you.”

Shiro melts into the hug, so suddenly that Keith nearly falls over under his weight. “Hit me all you like, it’s fine,” Shiro says.

When Keith tries to pull back to look at him, Shiro grabs the back of his head and holds it against him so he can’t.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Keith hisses. “Don’t talk like that! It’s not funny!”

“I wasn’t trying to be funny,” Shiro says, though there is a chuckle in his voice. “Just…maybe if you flinch and hit me a few times, and I never hurt you back, maybe your body will finally…get it?”

Keith groans. “That’s terrible. And stupid. I’m not going to…how could you even…just shut up, Shiro,” he mutters. “Just shut up.”

Unexpectedly, Shiro does. He sighs and then goes still and silent in his arms. It’s easier, Keith thinks. When he’s touching Shiro, he doesn’t flinch. He can do this. And when Shiro’s hand starts rubbing at the back of his neck, he just sighs and leans into it.

“There’s one more thing though,” Shiro says softly, the words stilted with hesitation.

Keith stiffens before he can stop himself. Shiro slides his hand down to rest between Keith’s shoulder blades, holding him there so Keith stays.

“It’s okay if fighting me, my clone, changed things,” Shiro whispers, so softly Keith can hardly hear him. “Just…just let me know what’s okay and what isn’t and I’ll…god, Keith, I’ll do anything to make you feel safe and comfortable again. I’ll do anything for you.”

Shiro’s mentioned that more than once. How the fight changed things, how things are different now. He keeps saying it and Keith thinks he’s going to keep saying it until Keith confirms or denies it. Heat rushes to his face at the idea. He’s said it twice already, but saying it _to_ Shiro is different somehow. Even if he already knows.

“It didn’t change anything,” he mumbles into Shiro’s shoulder. “Idiot. I never gave up. Not even when we were falling and I wasn’t even completely sure it was you anymore. If things had changed I would have…I wouldn’t have…I still love you, alright? I’m not saying it again. Just let it go. It doesn’t have to…just…just leave it alone.”

Shiro’s arm tightens around him and Keith gets that restless energy in his arms again. To lash out. But it’s not some bodily reflex to Shiro’s touch. It’s his own damn fear that Shiro’s going to take those words and be stupid with them. Try to…try to make it all better. Try to change how he acts around Keith as if that could make it easier to deal with. But Keith has always feared that.

There’s a reason he said it to an imagined ghost of Shiro in the black lion, and again moments before he thought he was going to die. He never wanted to burden Shiro with it. Never wanted to make Shiro doubt his every interaction with him. Didn’t want him to pull back his touches and guard his words all in the vain hope that he won’t make Keith hurt from it all.

When Shiro breaks the silence, it’s not what Keith expects. He doesn’t pull away, he doesn’t immediately put a wall between them. He _sobs_. A soft, broken sound, and then his arm tightens until Keith’s crushed against him so tightly he can barely breathe.

“Are you sure?” Shiro asks, his voice _ragged_. “Even after…even after I tried to kill you?”

The angry growl is a reflex. “ _It wasn’t you_!”

“I thought…”

Blood is rushing in Keith’s ears again. “You thought what?” he asks, more harshly than he should. “You’ve already heard it. You’ve heard all of it. How long I’ve loved you. All the reasons why and…you were _right there_ when I was saying it. Just…I’m sorry, alright? I tried not to. I did. It doesn’t have to change anything. It’s just…”

It’s inescapable. How much Shiro means to him.

“I thought it was too late,” Shiro whispers. “I finally got back to you but in _this_ body. And you were putting up walls and flinching away and I thought…you called him brother and I thought things must have changed, and I just…”

He’s not making any sense and Keith rubs his face into Shiro’s shoulder with an angry sound. “If you don’t drop this I will hit you again,” he mutters. It’s an empty threat, but still. His face is on fire and his hands are shaking where they touch Shiro’s back. Knowing that Shiro knows and telling him in person are so different. And having Shiro talk about it…

“I love you, Keith.” It’s a whisper, and Keith almost misses it. And then he thinks he’s imagining it.

“But not the same, right?” It hurts. It hurts but he needs to hear him say it. So there are no loop holes for hope. “It’s okay.”

Shiro tries to step away, but Keith holds on tight. He doesn’t want to see his face. Not just because he can’t bear to see the rejection, but because if he flinches away from him now he’ll never forgive himself.

“There’s a reason he reacted to you telling him you loved him, but not that you’re brothers. He had my memories. He had my feelings,” Shiro says, gripping Keith’s shoulder and trying to push him away again.

Keith resolutely clings to him even if it’s pathetic and childish. It doesn’t sound like the rejection he’s expecting, but it might still be coming. Even if…even if some of the things Shiro says are so far from normal between friends. They’ve always been that way. Shiro’s just like that, and he’s used to forcing himself not to read into any of it.

“He _was_ me, in a way, and you almost broke through to him with that.”

With his eyes shut tight, Keith can almost see that. The way those eyes had widened, the way some of the weight pressing him down had lifted just for a moment as he’d hesitated. But he’d been so focused on keeping that blade away from his face he hadn’t let it sink in.

“Shut up,” he mutters. “Just…I can’t hear this, Shiro. Please, stop.”

“No, you shut up,” Shiro huffs. “I’m trying to tell you I love you the same way and you keep assuming all the wrong things. Honestly, Keith, just shut up and let me finish.”

Keith’s breath catches somewhere in his throat and gets lost. He goes so still and weak that Shiro is finally able to push him away, holding him at arm’s length by the grip on his shoulder while Keith’s arms fall uselessly to his sides.

Shiro stares at him for a moment, and Keith can’t even remember when he looked up to his face but he’s caught in it. It’s a serious look, like Shiro’s searching for something in his expression. Keith has no idea what he’ll find. His face feels numb. It’s everything he’s wanted for so long, but when Shiro lifts his hand from his shoulder and reaches for his face, Keith flinches away before he can stop it.

He can see Shiro’s expression start to crumble, can see his body tense as he goes to move away, to give Keith space, but space is the last thing Keith wants. He reaches out and catches Shiro’s hand, pulls it back in, presses it to his cheek. Shiro’s eyes are wide and he stops breathing for a moment.

“Don’t force that,” he says, after a tense few moments, sucking in air like he’s been drowning. “God, Keith, don’t let me touch you when you want to flinch away.”

Keith closes his eyes tight against the surge of embarrassment his words cause before they’re even out of his mouth. “I _want_ you to touch me, Shiro,” he says. Just like in those stupid novels his roommate used to read. Like some stupid romantic cliche. “I’ve wanted it so long, and this…this… _whatever_ this flinching thing is, it’s fine. Just…just…”

He doesn’t even realises he’s leaning closer until he opens his eyes and finds Shiro’s face so close he can hardly focus. Momentum lost, he hangs there, leaning forward awkwardly. Shiro’s not moving either.

“Keith?”

His tone makes Keith shiver. “You’re sure?” Keith asks, throwing Shiro’s words back at him. “Even with his memories floating around in your head? You’re _sure_?”

Shiro smiles, soft and sad. “So much it hurts. He loved you too. It came from me.”

That’s the last thing Keith wants to hear. That only makes it even more like he really was fighting Shiro. That makes that thing so…so human. It makes, fuck it makes everything that happened so much worse.

“That’s really not the expression I was expecting when I thought about telling you how I feel,” Shiro says, and his tone is joking but it’s not funny.

“Is he still…is he still in there?” Keith asks, searching Shiro’s face as if it will give away more than his words will.

They’re still so close, he can’t seem to move away. He’s wanted for so long to hear Shiro feels the same, but with everything else it’s…it’s hard to process. It’s hard to feel good about it.

Shiro’s face does a complicated thing Keith can’t even begin to process. It almost looks like relief, but he still looks pained. “No. He’s gone. I don’t know if he died, or if I just…replaced him, or, god, _absorbed_ him, but he’s gone. All that’s left are his memories. They feel like my own.”

“This is all so messed up,” Keith mutters, leaning forward just enough to rest his forehead against Shiro’s. “Like some terrible sci-fi disaster we would have laughed at and mocked.”

Shiro is silent for a moment, and then he whispers, “I’m glad you can touch me without flinching. I really needed this, Keith. Having you close to me. I can’t…I can’t stop seeing it, you trapped under me, under him. If you hadn’t taken the arm he would have killed you.”

Before he can stop himself, Keith rests a hand on the remains of that arm. “We’ll get you a new arm.”

Shiro shakes his hand off. The movement shifts them until their noses bump too. “I don’t care about the arm, Keith. If I still had the arm I wouldn’t have you. Nothing will ever be worth losing you. _Nothing_.”

They’re so close now they’re sharing air, and Keith feels like Shiro is stealing all his oxygen. The intensity in Shiro’s voice gives him a full-body shiver. The certainty. But the moment is too much. It feels like they’ve been going around in circles and he needs to break away so he can breathe.

“If I kiss you, do you think you’ll flinch away?” Shiro whispers, just as Keith’s about to pull away. “I don’t want to frighten…I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.”

Keith doesn’t wait to find out. It only takes the slightest tilt of his chin for their lips to touch. He can barely focus enough to catalogue how it feels to finally kiss Shiro, because Shiro makes soft broken sound and melts against him. His hand shifts and curls into the hair at the base of Keith’s neck, and he can only shiver and press back against him.

Soon, far too soon, Shiro is pulling away. He doesn’t go far, but his breathing sounds wrong. And then he’s sobbing. Keith blinks his eyes open in time to see tears roll down Shiro’s cheeks before he leans down and presses his face to the join of Keith’s neck and shoulder. His body shakes with sobs that sound muffled and choked.

“Sorry,” Shiro gasps wetly against his neck. “I just…I thought it was too late and you…I nearly lost you.”

Keith feels a familiar burn in his own eyes and closes them tight. As tightly as he can, he holds Shiro to him. He can almost pretend Shiro’s the only one shaking with sobs.

It’s a long time before they part. Shiro’s a mess. His face is all blotchy, his sniffing just sounds gross. Keith has a feeling he looks even worse. But he feels better. Lighter. Shiro’s words are finally sinking in around the madness of his clone and what Keith went through.

“You really love me?” he asks before he can stop himself. “The way I love you?”

“As long as that’s the still the way you talked about when you thought no one was listening,” Shiro says, smiling even though the corners of his mouth tremble.

Keith’s so fixated on Shiro’s shaky smile, and the fact he was kissing him before and could kiss him again, that he doesn’t notice Shiro reaching for him until he’s flinching away.

Shiro’s breath hitches on a sob at the same time Keith growls at himself. There’s a pulse of adrenaline shooting through him from the fright, but he’s not letting it win. He’s not stepping away, he’s not letting Shiro feel this way.

Even though his hands are shaking from the scare, he reaches out and takes Shiro’s hand, bringing it to his cheek like he has before. When Shiro’s breath hitches on another sob, Keith can almost feel it through his touch.

“Don’t doubt for a second that I want this,” he says, his voice sounding more broken then he’d like, but he’ll take anything right now as long as he can get the words out. “I am not afraid of you. I love you and I will always reach for you if I flinch away.”

Shiro inhales, slow and shuddering, then he nods. “But you’ll tell me if that changes? If…if I scare you?”

Keith wants to laugh, but he just nods, turning his head on instinct to kiss Shiro’s palm. Shiro’s expression softens. He brushes his thumb over Keith’s cheek and then lets his hand fall.

“Do you think you can sleep next to me tonight?” he asks. “I don’t want to be alone, but I don’t want you to wake up and be thrown back there either.”

Keith rubs at his face. “I don’t know if I can sleep at all.”

“Just lie down with me for a while then?” Shiro asks, moving over to the bed, pulling back the sheets and sitting on the edge even though he’s still fully clothed.

Keith wants nothing more than to join him, even if he has to deal with flinching away before he can settle. Being with Shiro like this, it’s everything. But if Shiro gets upset with every flinch, how would he feel if Keith wakes in the night and reacts in a worse way? What if he wakes and lashes out?

“You won’t hurt me, Keith,” Shiro says, reaching out his hand. “But if you do, it’s not your fault, and we’ll deal with it then and only then.”

“It’s not your fault either,” Keith replies, looking at his outstretched hand, and then the bed. Even though he feels drained and exhausted, even with several days of insufficient sleep weighing down on him, he feels too wired for sleep. He’s still turning it all over in his head, what happened, the new information Shiro gave him about the clone. What’s just happened now. The fact they kissed.

The fact Shiro loves him. Is _in love_ with him. Even after Keith took his arm.

“Hey, you can say no,” Shiro says softly. “You can take the bed, I’ll go to another building, or even the black lion. This is a lot, I know.”

“But you’d rather I say yes,” Keith says, moving closer, remembering what Shiro said earlier. “You just want to hold me and never let me go, right?”

The red blotches on Shiro’s face had just started clearing, but the pink seeps back in. “Yeah, and I’d hide us away in here for days if I could.”

As soon as he’s close enough, Shiro grabs him and pulls him close. Keith stiffens before he can stop himself, but Shiro just waits, holding his breath it seems. As Keith relaxes, Shiro exhales slowly, and then moves back, sliding under the sheets properly, tugging Keith in too.

“You need the sleep more than I do,” Shiro murmurs. “You okay?”

Keith tugs the blankets up and looks at the space between them. It was easy to follow Shiro’s momentum, but now he’s left facing the fact they’re in a bed together. He can feel his face start to heat up.

“Keith? Please tell me you’re okay,” Shiro says when he doesn’t answer.

Even thinking of trying to articulate everything he’s feeling makes Keith feel heavy. Shaking his head, he slides closer and slowly presses up against Shiro’s side. He hopes Shiro can’t feel the way his hand shakes as it rests on Shiro’s far side, but at this point, it hardly matters. What the hell does shaking hands matter after talking about everything they’ve been talking about?

“Are you?” he counters moving to rest his head on Shiro’s chest.

Before he can, Shiro shifts and moves him. Within moments, Keith’s on his back and Shiro’s resting his head on Keith’s chest and sighing a long, slow sigh.

“I am now,” he whispers.

Keith swallows and looks up at the ceiling. The room is still light. There’s nothing covering the windows. In an effort to not think too closely about how Shiro’s shifting one leg over his to press against his side more comfortably, he realises he didn’t even check what time nightfall is on this planet.

“It’s too early for sleeping,” he says. “What if the others—”

“I told them not to disturb us,” Shiro says. “That we needed to talk.”

“You know they’re going to bombard us with questions tomorrow, right?”

Questions he won’t know how to answer, about things he still doesn’t really understand. They’ve probably all seen the way he flinches around Shiro, but no one has said anything. If he was in their place he wouldn’t know what to say either.

“Right now, I don’t care,” Shiro says, sliding his hand up Keith’s chest to brush a thumb over his chin. When Keith doesn’t flinch, he shifts it higher, brushing his lips and then sliding over to trace the scar on his cheek. “I just want to be here with you right now and figure it all out later.”

Keith reaches up and curls his hand over Shiro’s. He can give him that. “Okay.”

Figuring it out later sounds good to him. He can spend the night thinking it through. He doesn’t think he’ll sleep. Maybe in the morning he’ll understand everything a bit better.

“Am I too heavy?” Shiro asks, linking their fingers and tugging until they’re resting their joined hands on Keith’s stomach.

“No, you’re fine,” Keith says. It makes what’s happening a little more real, the heavy, warm weight of him. It’s nothing like when he was being pinned down by the clone, which is probably what Shiro fears. Maybe Keith should be fearing that too but it almost makes him sleepy instead, the warm weight on his chest and side, hearing and feeling Shiro’s breathing start to slow. He can’t understand how, after everything they’ve just been saying and doing, but it really seems like Shiro is falling asleep.

“Good, I can hear your heart this way,” Shiro whispers.

Tears prick at Keith’s eyes and he doesn’t even know why. But when he thinks back on how Shiro said he just wants to be close to him, has kept mentioning how those memories of almost killing him feel real, he thinks he gets it. He should have gotten it earlier. Should have stopped being so selfish and thought, really thought, about how Shiro must be feeling.

“I’m here,” he says softly, somehow feeling that it’s what Shiro wants, maybe even needs, to hear. Maybe he needs to hear it too, really. And maybe, when he flinches away, he should say that to Shiro as he reaches out for him. “I’m not going anywhere.”

**End**

**Author's Note:**

> Woo, so I totally rushed this to get it up before s7 drops but I've had so many feels about how they both must feel about all this that I had to finally write it out! And thanks to the peeps from Voltron Downunda for letting me spaz about this while I was writing it XD
> 
> You can find me at [legendaryroar](http://legendaryroar.tumblr.com) on tumblr.


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